MODERN STEREOTYPES
The autumn lecture
William knows what his audience wants: a little genteel dirt on the Royal family. Nothing to frighten the horses (many of whom are sitting in front of him) and nothing about the sainted Diana. Princess Margaret is fair game and Fergie is a team sport. Having titivated the company assembled in aid of the church roof with a little anecdote about Jacqueline Kennedy saying that the Queen was “pretty heavy-going” and Princess Margaret riposting “but that’s what’s she’s there for”, William reverses historically into the vagaries of Queen Mary and the joys of Queen Alexandra’s Pekinese. He has biographies of both waiting to be sold and signed.
It is Angela, self-appointed queen bee of Chipping Saintly, who has acquired William, known from her days in PR. She is operating the Powerpoint presentation, smug that she has produced a speaker known from the telly. William was a perfectly respectable journalist on The Daily Telegraph but now pops up at weddings and jubilees as a “Royal expert”, deftly steering blonde breakfast presenters away from identifying the Duke of Gloucester as the Duke of Kent. Such is the value of arcane knowledge.
When Eamonn Holmes (who William thought was Eamonn Andrews) referred to the monarch as “Queenie”, he required smelling salts.
Here in the Home Counties, William is on safe territory. All are as one that Princess Eugenie’s wedding was vulgar, the Queen must live forever, the Queen Mother was a marvellous old bat, and the Duchess of Cambridge never puts a foot wrong but the Duchess of Sussex’s clothes are too expensive. And not British. Badly done, Meghan, badly done. Brigadier Firebrace is worried by Prince Harry’s beard.
Over their smoked salmon and quails’ eggs, those blessed with Netflix want the insider track on The Crown. William is happy with this minutiae – he spotted Dr Who as Prince Philip wearing his Garter ribbon the wrong way around, and many Buckingham Palace scenes were filmed at Belvoir Castle but they flew the wrong standard. All are delighted with these solecisms, buy the books and congratulate themselves on raising £1,800 for St Mary’s.